53 comentarios:

Dear Carmen, I am deeply moved by so beautiful a farewell. Full of nostalgic memories, your letter makes me conscious of how much my life has changed since I met you two years ago. I remember that, in the beginning, I disliked you, noticing a sense of haughtiness in your behaviour towards people you did not know. What a mistake I made! However, I decided to keep going, come what may, because I wished to learn the language properly and I perceived you were different, the first person telling us: “Do what I tell you to do, and you will learn”. I could not fancy that such a plain statement would change my destiny, in every way. I have become confident with my skills, nearly to reach the dream of studying and leaving with English people, in the UK. Can you believe it? A person who did not know anything of the language two years ago.

Nevertheless, I value with more enthusiasm what you have done as a person. All of us are different and see people in different way, BUT after two years getting to know you, I would fiercely argue with those who just do not see what a great woman you are! Brave, intelligent, funny, sincere and kind, there is nothing else you might ask when meeting a person. Besides, you have encouraged me all the time, supporting me as well when impediments threatened my pursuits, remarking that I must always be myself. Every time you say: YOU CAN, I know that I can.

What about the eternal discussion about men and women’s nature we have been maintaining during these two years? You have made me wish to be a MAN, and I hope I am now in the correct path to do so. On the other hand, with your help, women are not the most intriguing subject of the world any more; for you have granted us, men, the key to comprehend and “conquer” them (I am very fortunate by having succeed in finding the right person).

Finally, you have opened us the door of wisdom, culture, perfection and sophistication; pointing that we must do our best to achieve excellence and avoid mediocrity.

I really wish we MAY meet you in the future though if it BE not so, please, REMEMBER US.

A wonderful letter Carmen.Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart, I do share Roberto's feelings so I'll not expand on it. Just thanks for teaching and guiding us throughout the last two years.

Well really, Roberto, thanks so much, such nice words particularly coming from you, my greatest achievement ever!!! Yes, I do think you are a different person and you are indeed A Man...not easy to find oround these days. Congratulations. You´ll be happy and when the time comes to leave for a better world you will have little to regret.

Wow! I am delighted!! Carmen your letter is simply perfect and beautiful, and Roberto´s is also moving! It is very sad the scene you describe, the class empty... "never to open it again" with us...We have lived many memorable moments at class and outside indeed. We have met each other and we have shared so many things together that I don´t believe anyone could forget them ever. As for me is concerned, who was to tell me I was going to win a contest two years ago? Who was to tell me I would be able to read Shakespeare, Keats or Eliot?? Who was to tell me I could think of leaving Spain to go to London??And it is thanks to you Carmen that I have achieved more than I would have imagined. We have been very lucky indeed.

Wow! I am delighted!! Carmen your letter is simply perfect and beautiful, and Roberto´s is also moving! It is very sad the scene you describe, the class empty... "never to open it again" with us...We have lived many memorable moments at class and outside indeed. We have met each other and we have shared so many things together that I don´t believe anyone could forget them ever. As for me is concerned, who was to tell me I was going to win a contest two years ago? Who was to tell me I would be able to read Shakespeare, Keats or Eliot?? Who was to tell me I could think of leaving Spain to go to London??And it is thanks to you Carmen that I have achieved more than I would have imagined. We have been very lucky indeed.

Thanks María for your nice words. Yes we´ve come a long way together, shared many things and learnt something, I hope, and we´ve done it together, I wouldn´t have done it without you lot, I´ve had lots of students, some very good but two groups en masse? No. Congratulations you also deserve a lot of praise.

I´ve read Carmen´s letter and it is very beautiful and sad too! (Our brother says that she can write, in English, in Spanish he says, she is not as good).I agree with María that the closing of the door is sad but grand and perfect, it is one of the parts I´ve liked best. As there must always be something comical because if not it wouldn´t be Carmen, the way in which you describe your daffodils or at least some of them is funny.I´ve liked that too and the quotes that you have picked so very suitably. Indeed everything is really fantastic. Daffodils you must be very, very very sad after having read it. Well nothing is eternal and I will also miss you you are part of the school you are the only students ever that have been classified under a nickname that has turned them into a special class. In the department we all know who you are. You are the aristocracy of the school you have a title.I´m sure that you are not going to lose contact with these students, nor they with you. They´ve been really lucky to have you and they know as Roberto says in his beautiful letter which is a great compliment. Roberto you have learnt a lot!!!The only snag is that they don´t deserve you, if they had appreciated you enough they would have failed the exam and not leave you, as I am positive that next year you are going to have a depression without them, alone, going up those stairs, entering the classroom and facing those new students who do not speak nor ever will speak English!

I can´t almost write a word. As soon as I began to read the letter, I could feel the tears in my eyes. I have to admit that I didn´t have any interest in learning English when I arrived at this school. I was only accompaning a friend of mine who didn´t want to go alone. But she wasn´t admited in the lists. So I had to began alone a course that I wasn´t very sure of feeling like attending it. But Marta was there to demonstrate us that not only did we need to study a lot of English, because we didn´t realy know anything abuot it, but also Spanish, given that most of us didnt´t pronounce properly a word in our own language. I haven´t forgotten these words and I try to do my best when I speak both in Spanish or in English. And when I thought that nothing could be better, Carmen appeared in my life. I have learnt so many things from you, and not only about English but also about life. I have never attended so funny a course as this. I have enjoyed every minute of your lessons. I have learnt a lot about Shakespeare and I have also learnt to enjoy a good English novel. So many things... We have gone to the theatre, to have a cup of wine. We have been your daffodils... I think that none of us will forget you.

Well, thank you, Marta, for your words, indeed you are very right when you say that these students are special and the Peers of the EOIs. I asked them last year whether they wanted to belong to the "Club", and told them at the end that they did, so I´m ever so glad that their different status is recognized by others!!!! you see, Dafs, quality is always perceived!I will certainly miss them... always, but we must "move", Life is about walking "the straight and narrow path" and all of us have to contnue, we cannot leave the road and jump out and maybe change our destiny...we must go on; We have the times we shared stored in our minds, and everytime we see a daffodil, like Dr. Manette in "one hundred and five North Tower" the times we´ve spent together will be brought forth...

Well, Noemi, I´m sure you had one tissue ready at hand to wipe those tears away!!Thanks for what you have written to me. I´m ever so glad that it was you who was accepted and not your friend!!! You are so gifted for phonetics! You were very lucky to have Marta in the First Year, and very clever to do what she told all the students to do!!I will not forget you either...yes, we´ve enjoyed ourselves together and learnt some things, always with sense of humour..fantastic!

You have said it, I will miss you terribly. Over these two years you have been so demanding with me in so many aspects that all my life has been spinning around you and English, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Now I must get back my life (sorry I’m weeping),my friends, my walking every day with my dog to keep both in healthy conditions….Even my dog have been abandoned because of English. Your class is empty and so is my soul. I feel like a widower who has to learn how to live a new life after her husband’s death…You say I’ve been always against you, but, what you don’t know is how much I’ve striven to please you, how much I’d have liked your liking me, and I’ve never got it. In that task I’ve failed.You have been for me more than a teacher, and you know that. I’ve admired you and loved you as a friend, even though many times I should have been also cross with you. But these annoyances where even signs of how important you were for me: I never ever get annoyed, angry or cross with people who doesn’t matter to me.As a teacher I’m also in debt with you, had not been for you, I wouldn’t have learnt as half as I already know. Thank you for that, thank you for your effort, your encouragement and your never find the time to finish a class. You have made us study a lot but you have also worked as very few teachers do. The effort has been mutual and this is most appreciated.I wish you found other daffodils, but I think unfortunately you won’t. Over these two years we have built something very special: the blog, the contest, the party after it, the “cañas” after the theatre …Those events have made us an unusual group of classmates, and you an unusual teacher as well. It goes without saying that we have shared something very different as what is usual between teachers and pupils, that’s the reason why I think not only me, but also all of the daffodils are going to miss you terribly. I have also a question for you, to whom are you going to disagree next year? Remember I won’t be there….any more.LovePaloma.

WOWWWW Carmen!!! Your letter is so beautiful. I want to thank your patience with us. We will miss you a lot!!!. It is not easy to teach English, and to teach English catching the attention of the pupils, you have done both things. We have laugh, learned a lot of English and knew a new friend, YOU. Of course we hope to keep in contact with you, and if you need us to organize another “the woman in white prize” we will be happy to help you. I also want to thank my class mates for the good times we had pass and I hope to be in contact with all of you. Thank you: Roberto, Ana, Natalia, Carmen, María, Silvia, José Manuel, Elena Gil, Sonia del Rio, etc..etc... Good summer for all of you and I will see you tomorrow at the oral exam and in the dinner, of course. Good luck for the oral!!!

Oh... A very beautiful letter, Carmen. And very moving comments, too. I might also need some of these tissues, Noemi. :)

Even if I have not written much lately, I've kept on reading you on the blog. I have really missed attending these last lessons, as I was enjoying every minute of them, especially the final discussion on the books.

Thank you Carmen (and Marta too!) for supporting us, and helping us get here, by means of interesting compositions, great books and poems, ... and theater evenings! If it were not for you, I may have not got interested in theater or in Shakespeare! And that would have been a great loss...

And of course, I will really miss meeting you all twice a week... but all good things come to an end! Hugs and kisses, Elena.

During these two years we have learnt English enjoying, laughing and… saving efforts thanks to your good advises about memorising phrases instead of complicated grammatical formulas (“the table the leg of which…”, “The gentlemen being out…”). You have given us the best gift than a teacher can do to students: Curiosity. Yes, curiosity in continuing learning, reading, writing, listening… New novels and books will be part of our free time and the podcasts of BBC will be part of our daily sounds. You have put in our hands tools for our future improvement in this language we have started to love.

We have been very lucky in having so an excellent teacher and you are right when you say that our moments at class will be remembered in our future contact with new experiences in English. You have been so generous with us sharing your time at Theatre, expanding your time at class ( we knew when the lesson started but never knew when the lesson was going to finish), and attending our individual troubles to go ahead with the year… that I will never forget your help at bad moments, and your way of encouraging us to avoid be conformist with our life. At the beginning of the last year you said that your students were always the best, and we did not understand what you were saying but, now, all of us know something really certain: you are the best.

In spite of not having attended all the lessons these two last months, every Monday and Wednesday I have been, with my mind, with you, missing that time of learning and enjoyment. My actual circumstances do not let me go out with you for our dinner but, in a special way, I will be with you and the other students, laughing and joking.

I assure you that my “fichas” will be well preserved, because they contain not only practical knowledge but also great regards of you and my classmates, and that I will try to write my future “fichas” following your good advices about LIFE.

During these two years we have learnt English enjoying, laughing and… saving efforts thanks to your good advises about memorising phrases instead of complicated grammatical formulas (“the table the leg of which…”, “The gentlemen being out…”). You have given us the best gift than a teacher can do to students: Curiosity. Yes, curiosity in continuing learning, reading, writing, listening… New novels and books will be part of our free time and the podcasts of BBC will be part of our daily sounds. You have put in our hands tools for our future improvement in this language we have started to love.

We have been very lucky in having so an excellent teacher and you are right when you say that our moments at class will be remembered in our future contact with new experiences in English. You have been so generous with us sharing your time at Theatre, expanding your time at class ( we knew when the lesson started but never knew when the lesson was going to finish), and attending our individual troubles to go ahead with the year… that I will never forget your help at bad moments, and your way of encouraging us to avoid be conformist with our life. At the beginning of the last year you said that your students were always the best, and we did not understand what you were saying but, now, all of us know something really certain: you are the best.

In spite of not having attended all the lessons these two last months, every Monday and Wednesday I have been, with my mind, with you, missing that time of learning and enjoyment. My actual circumstances do not let me go out with you for our dinner but, in a special way, I will be with you and the other students, laughing and joking.

I assure you that my “fichas” will be well preserved, because they contain not only practical knowledge but also great regards of you and my classmates, and that I will try to write my future “fichas” following your good advices about LIFE.

Sorry I wrote my comments very quickly and I make two terrible mistakes!!!! I will write it again correctly…. ;-(

WOWWWW Carmen!!! Your letter is so beautiful. I want to thank your patience with us. We will miss you a lot!!!. It is not easy to teach English, and to teach English catching the attention of the pupils, you have done both things. WE HAVE LAUGHED, learned a lot of English and knew a new friend, YOU. Of course we hope to keep in contact with you, and if you need us to organize another “the woman in white prize” we will be happy to help you. I also want to thank my class mates for the good times WE HAD PASSED and I hope to be in contact with all of you. Thank you: Roberto, Ana, Natalia, Carmen, María, Silvia, José Manuel, Elena Gil, Sonia del Rio, etc..etc... Good summer for all of you and I will see you tomorrow at the oral exam and in the dinner, of course. Good luck for the oral!!!

Thanks,Paloma,for your words...but I perceive through them that there are things you have not understood about me...or perhaps about yourself... yet: You say I have been demanding with you...the truth is that you wanted to learn, your level was very poor and you were very demanding with yourself!!! You WERE against me,"For and Against", thus, you have argued with me too... much! normally about things I know more of, so perhaps you should have been somewhat less persevering!!!! As to being cross with me, why should you? I think I have given you more than you me, so I prefer to think that, as you also say, you ARE indebted to me and grateful; I know that you are a competitive person, and this has been very obvious in your relationship with me, it would have been better to see me as "the captain" in my team, as was more so last year, and not as an opponent to beat. Very difficult, as I have said. All in all, I want you to know that I gave you what you asked for, and the result is not bad at all considering what you have achieved in two years, for which I sincerely congratulate you! As to going back to your friends, your dog,...good luck, but I hardly think...! Once you have known the best... and mixed with it...it´s hard to do without it. Treasure us in your heart, you´ll remember us too much..

Thanks, Elena for your nice comments and your positive attitude, which you have maintened these two years though our sides were often...opposed!! You always said what you thought, but smiling, keep smiling it´s very nice...I do wish that you could be with us tomorrow but we´ll think of you! See you in September. Don´t forget to sit your exam then.

Naría Luisa, we´ll miss you tomorrow, but will think of you. Let´s see if that little girl who has attended lessons is born with a gift for...English! Don´t worry about the actual birth, the doctor will do the job for you!

Elena Martinez, this time I got it right! a very nice post, you´ve remembered all your mates, as I do, but for stylistic reasons I couldn´t mention all of you in my letter, which is horrible, I know, but all of you are in my heart!

Well, I don't know what to say after what I have read. As always I was touched by your letter. It has been an splendid and wonderful time that we spend with you. Not only had we learnt a lot of English (of course I knew you were the better teacher, from the begining)but also very vuable things for life. I coudn't believe I was going to read Dickens! (neither could my mother in love) Every day, I was expecting your clever commentaries, always full of good sense of humour. What can I say? I feel very sorry for this time is finished, but I have known nice people, have got a few friends and I have had the best and most appealing English teacher.I am very grateful for all you have teach me.

Carmen,What an emotion reading your letter! Not only are you an excellent teacher, but also a special person. You know it.When I began fourth, my niece said me: Choose Carmen, she is the best. And Barbara was right.

It have been a pleasure to share this time with you: professional, clever and... funny!

I enjoyed the night very much at so intimate a restaurant, sorrounded by so wonderful people! Thank you Carmen for organizing it. By the way, you look so pretty with your green ring!! I believe it is not the last dinner. I have all your mails, I warn you!! Very very very pleased to meet you all.Cristina, we want your photos!! Don´t hesitate to use photoshop if necessary!! ;)

Thanks for the prettiest of rings!! Thanks for the very good company!!! We sure had a nice evening, me and my daffodils...I must say that I had thought we could have remembered some of our most memorable days or anecdotes together, but the evening went in a different way....we´ll have to meet and discussed what happened and why, or shall we do it on line??? Do you dare??

Thank you Rachel for your very positive comment! You are indeed a positive student, in the classroom and out of it and have always taken the best of what was offered, were it Dickens, Persuasion or the Woman in White. You have the right attitude to life.

After reading your moving letter and the comments in this blog I just want to say thank you again. Thank you for teaching English through literature, your comments in class, your efforts with the theatre. It’s amazing to think that I have been able to read so far three, almost four , classical English books, and even speak about them! All this has been possible thanks to you. I don’t know where life is going to lead us, but I know that all of us will remember these last two years.

Next weekend I’ll send the photos of the dinner. I enjoyed it very much.

Well, thank you Cristina, with your post you confirm what I said at the beginning of our relationship, "when our students leave what they value most is the novel and the theatre!!! I´m glad you´ve enjoyed it and i´m afraid that English and you may be a LIFE-long ROMANCE....

Claudia, thanks for your post!! It is a very good summary of these two years in which you have not forgotten anyothing, the novels, the theatre, the classroom, your mates, me....As to what hapenned, I will only say that as happens with the sea in Santander "siempre hay mar de fondo"...

Thank you Carmen for your beautiful words and your moving feelings, really moving indeed! I’ve enjoyed Marta’s words as well, much more earthly :)The last pupils always seem the best, but as we all know the next are waiting… and they also will be great, I’m sure!, and Carmen again, will be fabulous and full of energy, Carmen will be herself, forever and ever again. Thank you Carmen, it has been a pleasure to learn with you.

Carmen, thank you very much for your fantastic, nice, lovely, marvellous, sensibility, letter full of nice words about us. It is really a pity not continue in the school with you. I'll miss you very much. Now, I love the English language more than before.I hope to see you in the theatre.Kisses.

Nila, thanks so much for your kind words, it seems a pity not to see all of you next year...but we must move... and move we will, however none of my future students will replace you, we managed to create a very nice group and this is very difficult indeed...It´s also hard to get used to new faces, new characters...which I will ahve to make my own...difficult!

Well, for me would be perfect Finnegans, because it has an English atmosphere. I'm going to suggest Mark's coming to speak English to us, but I can't promise anything. This man is unpredictable. Well, tell me whatever

Hello mates! We are meeting very likely this Thursday with Mark, the English boy we met last summer, at "Books and Coffee", Calle Espíritu Santo, at 8.30 p.m. How is it for you?? In case you are joining us, write it here or send me an email: maryah16@hotmail.comCheers!